Mac users more likely to buy music online

PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y. Apple Mac users are more likely than PC users to pay to download music, according to a new study by the NPD Group.

According to NPD’s quarterly Digital Music Monitor, in the third quarter of 2007 half of all Mac users had paid to download music tracks from sites like iTunes, but just 16% of PC owners had done so. That trend followed offline, as the study found that Mac users were also more likely to purchase CDs.

“There’s still a cultural divide between Apple consumers and the rest of the computing world, and that’s especially apparent when it comes to the way they interact with music,” according to Russ Crupnick, vp and entertainment industry analyst at The NPD Group. “Mac users are not only more active in digital music, they are also more likely to buy CDs, which helps debunk the myth that digital music consumers stop buying music in CD format.” 

Overall, more than 32% of Mac users report purchasing CDs in the third quarter of 2007, compared to just 28% of PC users. In addition to purchasing CDs and downloading music, Mac users are also more likely to listen to music and watch videos on their MP3-players and computers. While 34 percent of Mac users had uploaded music to their MP3 players, just 16% of PC users had done the same. Mac users are also much more likely to listen to music files on their computers (56%) than are PC users (31%).